With both President Obama and Gov. Deval Patrick this week calling for a revamp of community colleges, there should be no delay in reviewing the colleges’ mission and reordering them for a dramatically changed economy.

The dilemma in Massachusetts is how to do this while keeping politics to a minimum. Since the Legislature is a key player, that’s no small obstacle.

But let’s start on a positive note. The economy is the No. 1 national topic. It took a long while for the nation’s workforce to weaken but the warning signs have been visible for decades. With the transition to a service and information-based economy, the definition of skilled labor changed. Universities and colleges have kept pace in selected fields – engineering and business, for example – but the education establishment is not typically geared to change in response to society at large.

The role of community colleges has never been clearly defined. Is it to help students who struggled in high school and later rediscovered learning? Is it to prepare them for a four-year college? Is it a community resource for immigrants who need help with English and others seeking basic skills? Is it a training place where students can acquire skills relevant to the workplace?

Community colleges fill some or all of those roles but Obama and Patrick – and employers across the country – want the colleges to be primarily escalators to good jobs. That goal is inarguable in light of the nation’s stubbornly high unemployment rate. The jobless rate for those with less than a high school diploma is 13.8 percent, for those with some college it is 7.7 percent.

The call from Washington and the governor’s office follows a November report from the Boston Foundation outlining a jobs-centered direction for the state’s 15 community colleges. The push-back came swiftly. College jobs are at stake, for one. And colleges of any kind do not take kindly to outside intrusion. A trustee of Bristol Community College wrote a letter to the Boston Globe telling the Foundation, essentially, to butt out and stick to charitable causes.

But the economy is in crisis. And millions of unprepared workers are slated for a lifetime of financial hardship if they are not channeled to marketable skills.

The Boston Foundation report focused on low graduation rates at community colleges – which are low across the country (22 percent) but worse here (16 percent) – and on the lack of cohesion among the colleges. The Foundation had several recommendations, including placing the colleges under the Board of Higher Education, which Patrick has now embraced. Patrick recommends adding $10 million to community college funding, to hasten changes to the system.

If history is a guide, the notion of centralizing control and direction of the community colleges – which enjoy their separate boards of trustees and the favor of local legislators – will quickly be reduced to yet another legislative clash. Redefining the mission and direction of the community colleges – apart from control – will then be lost. The stakes are too high to allow that to happen. Patrick says 120,000 jobs are unfilled for lack of qualified workers.

Community colleges are the best, and often the last, hope for thousands of people who lack the requisite skills and training to climb the economic ladder. Community college students are older: More than half are over 25. Most come from families with no college experience and more than a third are enrolled part time. A current radio ad for Bunker Hill Community College informs would-be students of class offerings after 11 p.m. The ad is a poignant example of the situation facing so many people trying to get ahead: They live and work far outside the 9 to 5 world.

Blue-collar manufacturing jobs are no longer the economic engine they once were but there are new manufacturing jobs and biotechnology and health care sectors with endless opportunities. A key statistic from the Foundation report is that 38 percent of projected job openings in Massachusetts through 2016 will require more than a high-school degree but less than a four-year college degree.

It’s important to note that some community colleges already have successful partnerships with businesses and hospitals and last year all 15 collaborated on a successful effort to get a $20 million workforce grant from the federal government. The foundation has been laid.

Legislators from community college towns and boards of trustees must set aside local interests for the greater good. Properly defined and structured, the work of community colleges can be the difference between success or failure in life but students must be given the tools to graduate in order for that to happen.